Author: Sean Vanderfluit

52 Weeks – Week 35: Free Space

Beginner’s luck! The first time my wife joined me and my parents at bingo, she won several hundred dollars.

With the theme of “Free Space” for this week’s 52 Ancestors Challenge, I can’t help but think of bingo. Bingo was a big part of my mother’s side of the family. Moreover, bingo is one of the many games that are a huge part of both sides of my family.

Cards were, and remain, a huge part of our extended family’s gaming traditions. As you may recall if you have been with this blog since the beginning, part of the inspiration for its name was my family’s affinity for cards.

My maternal grandmother, Helen Lerner, and her mother, Emelia Anton, were both bridge players. Into her 90s, my great grandmother took great pride in the fact she still had the mental acuity for the game, but complained that her peers were getting too slow for her. Bridge is the one card game that has eluded me. I just never developed an interest in it and, despite my familiarity with many other card games, it still strikes me as unnecessarily convoluted.

However, there were a myriad of other card games that always seemed to be at play. Canasta, Oh Hell, Smear, and Hearts were frequent games of choice on my mother’s side of the family, while huge group games of Crazy 8s were popular with my paternal grandparents and my father’s siblings. Most Christmases, my siblings and I usually converge at my parents. In addition to the extended family who drop in during the holidays, our spouses have also become part of the card-playing tradition. Almost every evening there is a card game that goes into the wee hours of the night.

After decades of playing crib, of course it’s the day I teach the game to my eldest that I got dealt a hand like this.

The king of games with my maternal grandfather, Leo Burgess, was cribbage. When I was little, I was mesmerized by the cadence of the game and the cryptic chanting involving the counting of fifteens. My grandfather and my father taught me how to play when I was seven or eight, and I still play to this day.

My grandfather was a real stickler for the way people played cards. There were all sorts of arcane rules, traditions, and habits that had to be followed. Heaven help you if you cut the deck the wrong way. I still wince whenever one of his customs are breached, despite the fact my grandfather died over 25 years ago. Even worse was if you dared take “his” trick or – god forbid – you beat him at a game. In my case, there was little risk of that happening. I happen to be a good crib player, but my grandfather often seemed unbeatable.

The last day I spent with my grandfather, about a month before he passed away, was spent playing crib and watching The Price is Right. It was clear my grandfather’s advancing age and deteriorating health was starting to affect him, because out of the score of games we played that day, I managed to beat him twice. My grandfather was such an avid card player that – don’t tell anyone – my mother and uncle slipped a fresh deck of cards in the pocket of the suit he was buried in.

It seems that the only time I play Rummikub is when I visit family in Holland.

Board games were – and remain – popular as well. One of my uncles had a collection of now-obscure games that we nibblings enjoyed playing, even though we didn’t know the rules or have all the pieces. Nothing made us feel more like a big kid when our parents invited us to play a board game, such as Stock Ticker, with them. Board games were a common birthday and Christmas gift. With five kids in my family, we had a lot of Board games! I still have some of them, although it seems one of my brothers absconded with a lot of them.

Our sons are also very keen on board games, and do well with games that one might think are well above their age level. Hardly a weekend goes by in our house without several games being played. It is also common for us to play on some weeknights as well.

We love board and card games in our family. These are but a few of the games we have.

Before ending this examination of our family’s tradition of game play, I return to the game of bingo. It was extremely popular on my mother’s side of the family. My mother’s parents, aunts, and grandmother were all devoted bingo players. I remember the first time I got to go to bingo with my mother, two of her aunts, and my grandmother. My great grandmother might have been there that same evening. As I was in my teens, I definitely threw off the demographic curve of the crowd in the bingo hall. While the majority of the crowd in attendance that night struck me as rather old, they were amazingly spritely and quick with their cards. The speed at which my great aunts and grandmother marked the many cards they each were playing at one time. I found it difficult enough to keep up with the few cards I was playing each time.

My maternal grandfather also loved playing bingo and often went with my grandmother. My grandmother passed away in her early 60s, so after she died my grandfather would often go with my great grandmother. The two of them seemed to squabble quite often and my grandfather once complained about being in his 70s but still having mother-in-law problems. Nevertheless, he and my great grandmother shared their love of bingo. In fact, my grandfather passed away while doing something he loved, while out one night playing bingo with his younger brother.

With a long weekend coming up, I expect that we will be playing a lot of board games over the next many days!

Addendum: Clearly I’ve generated a lot of content in 35 weeks that I’ve already forgotten about. A week after posting this, I discovered I had already written about this on Week 18 (Social), albeit in less detail. C’est la vie!

Further Addendum: Every week, Amy Crow Johnson sends an email summarizing two or three items that have caught her eye, along with a description of the next week’s 52 Ancestors theme. In her email looking back at Week 35, Amy highlighted this post, saying “Sean shared how much his family has enjoyed card games and board games over the years. (I have to admit that I was secretly hoping someone would write about bingo. My mom used to be an avid player, and my family has a Christmas bingo party every year!)”

52 Weeks – Week 34: Timeline

In the timeline of the 52 Ancestors Challenge, we’re on Week 34, which is the theme of the week, “Timeline”!

Plotting out the timeline of an ancestor or family group can be a great analytical tool. However, I find what is just as important are timelines of history. Knowing the history of a place can provide context and clues as to our ancestors’ actions.

Timelines of history are totally bodacious and most triumphant.

One of my favourite timelines of history is the Canon of the Netherlands. In addition to my love of genealogy, I have always loved history (it was my major in undergrad) and the Canon appeals to my inner history geek. It is a timeline of fifty historical events that together show the historical and cultural development of the Netherlands as a nation. Not only that, there are separate canons for every province and the regions within each province. It is a beautiful piece of work and I enjoy reading it independent of any family history research I might be doing.

The Canon was developed at the behest of the Dutch ministry of education and provides a summary of what is taught in Dutch primary schools. The website is available in English for the timeline itself and for each of the historical and cultural events listed on the timeline, although other information (such as the “About” pages, FAQs, and regional Canons) is only available in Dutch. That’s where the translate functions of browsers like Chrome can come in handy, although I like to try to read them in the original Dutch as part of my decades-long struggle to learn the language.

The Canon for Noord Holland (North Holland), the province where my father was born.

Knowing when the Netherlands was under French dominion helps in understanding the timeline of some of my ancestors. Napoleon originally structured the Netherlands as a separate “Kingdom of Holland”, with his brother Louis as the King. Over time, Louis ran the kingdom more with Dutch interests in mind, so in 1810 Napoleon abolished the kingdom and incorporated the Netherlands as part of France itself. Records from the time of French rule might be in Dutch, French, or a combination of both. Records I’ve found from after the Netherlands was incorporated into the Empire are more likely to be in French.

My Great x 4 grandparents, Jan de Waard and Cornelia Pieters Kooij, married on October 10, 1813. The record of their marriage is written in Dutch, but bears the seal of Imperial France. Less than a month after their marriage, a popular uprising resulted in the ouster of the French. On November 30, 1813, the son of the former stadholder of the country returned from exile and was named William I, Sovereign Prince of the United Netherlands. Jan and Gurr marriage was one of the last in Texel to be registered under the French regime.

Knowing the timelines of history have also been helpful in understanding my maternal grandfather’s family history. He was Mormon (Latter Day Saints) and several of his direct ancestors were amongst the earliest converts to the new religion, joining in the 1830s in New York State. Knowing the history of Mormon migration helps me understand my maternal ancestors’ movements and why they did certain things at certain times.

The group’s founder, Joseph Smith, sought to create a “New Jerusalem”. He and his followers moved to Ohio and soon began building a settlement in Missouri. In 1833, church members were run out of Missouri and a failed banking venture crippled the Ohio settlement. The Mormons attempted a settlement elsewhere in Missouri, but were driven out upon an executive order of the governor, calling for them to be exterminated or expelled from the state. In 1939, the church regrouped in a new community, Nauvoo, Illinois, and began to build their Zion there. Two years after Joseph Smith’s death in 1844, tensions with non-Mormons increased, such that the Mormons were driven out once again. They upped stakes and began the migration to Utah. During the westward migration, over the winter of 1846-1847, about 2,500 church members encamped at Winter Quarters, which was just north of where Omaha, Nebraska came to be. The first settlers arrived in what is now Salt Lake City in July 1847, in what was still Mexican territory.

Knowing this timeline, I can test the accuracy or reliability of information I have found about my Mormon ancestors. For example, some of the information I’ve found about my great x4 grandfather, Conrad Liggett, suggests that he died in Nauvoo before 1839. However, as Mormon settlement in Nauvoo did not begin until 1839, I doubt the veracity of that information.

If you were buried in Ohio in 1838, odds are you did not die in a town that was settled by the Mormons in 1839.

As well, if I have a Mormon ancestor who passed away in late 1846 or early 1947, chances are good that it occurred during the migration to Utah. For example, Conrad’s widow, Louisa Thomas, my 4x great grandmother, died on November 16, 1846. Sure enough, an entry in the Winter Quarters sexton’s records shows that Louisa died 19 miles up the river from Winters Quarters.

The entry for Louisa Thomas in the Winter Quarters sexton’s records, 1846-1848: “Loisa Cook. 36 years, 0 months, 0 days. Wife of Aaron W. Cook [her third husband]. Died 19 miles up the River from Winter quarters Bur[i]ed at the same place. [Died] Nov 16 1846. [Disease] chills fever. [Born] State of Mareland May 1811.”

Timelines of history can take you on some most excellent adventures!

52 Weeks – Week 33: Service

I’ve written about military service and religious service, so the twist I’ve taken for this week’s 52 Ancestors Challenge, “Service”, is to look at domestic service. Most of my ancestry consists of labourers and agricultural workers, so none were so posh as to have had servants. However, I do have ancestors who were the servants.

Sometime in my early teen years, I heard it told that during the war my paternal grandmother worked as a domestic servant. I’m unable to verify the story, as there is no longer anyone who would have first-hand knowledge of that fact. What civil records that might provide more information are not yet publicly available due to privacy laws and the lack of passage of sufficient time.

Elizabeth Bakker

My grandmother’s mother, Elizabeth Bakker, was also a domestic servant (“dienstbode” in Dutch) before she married. It appears she spent time working in Amsterdam as a domestic servant before returning to her hometown of Den Helder, where she performed similar work until 1920 or 1921. However, by the time she married in April 1921, she as “zonder beroep” (“without job”). Elizabeth’s older sister Johanna and her younger sister Cornelia also worked as a domestic servants.

The Bevolkingsregister (“Population Register”) family card for Cornelis Jan Bakker and family. His daughter Elizabeth (my great grandmother) is shown as a dienstbode (“domestic servant”).

My third great grandmother, Maartje Mettes, was a domestic servant when she married her first husband, Klaas Buur. Klaas was also a domestic servant at the time of the marriage. My suspicion is that they may have worked in the same household, which I will need to research. However, by the time Maartje married her second husband, my third great grandfather Cornelis Komen, she was “van beroep zonder” (“without a job”).

My great x4 grandmother, Vrouwtje Hilbert Hilberts, also spent time as a domestic servant and was doing that work when she got married.

Marriage registration for my great x4 grandparents, Nicolaas Cornelisz (“Klaas”) Komen and Vrouwtje Hilbert Hilberts. Vrouwtje was noted as van beroep dienstbode (“working as a domestic servant”) at the time of marriage in 1811.

Although in the majority, women were not the only domestic servants in my tree. While I have not done much research on my great x4 grandfather, Thomas Hadlond, he was a domestic servant in England before leaving for America and settling in Nebraska. I also have a 3x great uncle, Petrus (“Pieter”) van der Fluit who worked as a dienstknecht (“manservant”). Finally, in another form of domestic service, William Stockwell, my 8x great grandfather, likely came over to America as an indentured servant, gaining his liberty before he married.

52 Weeks – Week 32: At The Library

Despite having spent the last two weeks on a staycation, I’ve done precious little genealogy. You’d think that with all that time, I wouldn’t be completing Week 32 of the 52 Ancestors Challenge with minutes to spare before Week 33.

My eldest son and I attended the monthly on-line meeting of the B.C. Genealogy Society (BCGS) earlier this week. Otherwise, even with a four-hour block of time to myself today in which I planned to tackle some long-outstanding genealogy tasks, I got through exactly three documents. However, what I have managed to do is create all sorts of family memories, especially with our sons. We’ve had lots of outings around our city and participated in all sorts of fun activities, many of which were on the kids’ bucket lists. Creating family history is just as important and fun as studying it!

One thing we didn’t get up to was a trip to the library, which is normally a regular part of our lives. We love outings to the library, which is easy since we live so close to the Steveston branch of the Richmond Public Library. The kids have had library cards since they were very little. In fact, our youngest went to pre-school in the same building as the library, so it was easy to pop in for a library visit.

Trips to the library were also a regular thing with my family when I was little. My earliest memories include trips to the library with my parents – I can remember doing so as far back as when I was three years old. Family trips to the library continued even into high school, although by that time I was going there more often on my own. Nevertheless, I became quite familiar with my parents’ reading interests while cultivating my own. Usually I’d read not only the books I signed out, but often those of my parents, especially my father. He tended to read a lot of biographies and non-fiction, which was closer to some of my interests.

I also loved the school library. In grades five, six, and seven, I volunteered in the school library. Most days of the week I’d be there after school. The librarian was extremely encouraging and supportive. My favourite activity was helping the librarian with the bulletin boards she was always creating to promote reading. They often had a seasonal theme and more often than not involved some form of play on words. It was always a great source of pride when the librarian liked one of my ideas and let me design a bulletin board using my idea.

I needed proof of residence to get a library card with the city library. I hadn’t yet received any bills with my address on it and none of my ID had my new address. Luckily, the library accepted any postal mail with your name and address as proof of residence, so I used this letter and the envelope in which it came as proof of residence. The library accepted it and I have had that library card to this day.

After graduating with my history degree, I had a summer job as a librarian’s helper in a small government agency. A year later, after I found a career-path job, I took on a second part-time job at the local library for the extra income. I was worried during the job interview, as I had inadvertently incurred some late return fines that I hadn’t yet paid. Lucky for me, it wasn’t an issue. My job mostly involved shelving books and packing shipments for inter-branch returns, but it was a fun place to work and I got to know a lot about how libraries work.

Of course, libraries are a large part of genealogical research. In the days before on-line research, I was quite dependent on the LDS Family History Centre in Burnaby. From the Vancouver neighbourhood where I lived in the 90s, the Burnaby FHC was a 90-minute bus ride each way. I made that trip a lot. After I actually moved to Burnaby in the early naughts (twenty years later, I still don’t know what we’ve decided to call the first decade of this century!), I never visited the place. Developments in technology had minimized the need to so.

One library I wish I could visit in person more often is the BCGS Walter Draycott Library. It’s a wonderful library. In fact, it’s almost TARDIS-like. It seems so much larger on the inside than it appears from the outside. Unfortunately, it’s a 90-minute round trip and its Saturday hours conflicted with our children’s activities. However, due to the kids’ activities coming to a halt due to COVID, my eldest son (who is also a BCGS member) and I have been able to make the trip to the BCGS library after it reopened following its closure due to the pandemic.

It’s bigger on the inside!

We’re very lucky to have such a gem of a resource, even if we’re only able to take advantage of it infrequently. Of course, with two weeks off work, you’d think I’d be able to squeeze in a visit – if only the BCGS Library wasn’t closed for the summer break!

It was only near the end of my time off that I realized that I could have gone to the Cloverdale Branch of the Surrey Public Library, which has an amazing family history library. The irony is that our most recent family staycation activity took us within 100 meters of the library. In addition to genealogy, our eldest child is crazy for anything transportation related, and whatever the eldest is interested in, little brother is too. So we took them to ride the historic tram operated by the Fraser Valley Heritage Railway Society. Big brother doesn’t have to know that we were practically across the street from the genealogy library.